Stupid or Lying

The excitement, predictably, continues to build over the shocking revelation that (gasp!) the Obama administration might support a new (and probably permanent) federal Assault Weapons Ban.

I wrote earlier:

You know, we were all treated to a long, line of “But Obama isn’t going to take anyone’s guns” mularkey for months. Not that any of us believed a word of it, but all those folks were either ignorant or lying. (Okay, technically they could have been both…)

Where are all those people? They were on this site commenting. They were on all the other sites commenting. They were writing crap about “look at all the scared gun owners getting their panties in a bunch because of Obama…what a bunch of rubes” and “the rising gun sales have nothing whatsoever to do with the election of Obama.”…

So, I continue to be mystified by all the Obama supporters. Were they stupid? Or just lying?

Now, I want to clarify that I was referring specifically to gun-related issues. I have a lot of other problems with Obama and his crew, but the “stupid or lying” bit, in this case at least, was directed to those who said that Obama was not anti-gun blah blah blah.

I also want to clarify something else. When I asked that, meaning that it must have been at least one of those conditions, it wasn’t hyperbole. It wasn’t overstatement. It wasn’t harsh wording chosen in the heat of the moment. I wrote what I mean, and I stand by it.

I mean that anyone who openly stated that Obama and his administration would not be anti-gun must be either STUPID or LYING. Really.

So, yes. If you’re reading this and you thought Obama was not anti-gun, I’m saying that I think you are either STUPID or LYING.

I realize that no one likes being called those things. I also realize that calling names like that isn’t likely to win anyone over.

First, I don’t care if the stupid or the liars don’t like a spade being called a spade. They’re either stupid or liars, so I’m not really letting their feelings bother me all that much. They’ll get over it or they won’t. Who really cares?

Second, how many of these people can really be “won over”? Certainly not any of the liars. So to hell with the liars.

As for the stupid, maybe some of them will “see the light” and come to their senses. I certainly hope so. Anyone who cares about personal liberty and freedom should care about this issue as strongly, or even more strongly, than they care about free speech or freedom of religion. I would hope that they come around to siding with the good guys.

But “Oh, I’m so sorry you voted for the bad guys here and didn’t know it. We all know you MEANT WELL.” isn’t going to help anyone.

The change.gov site and then the new whitehouse.gov site both clearly stated that reinstating an AWB and making it permanent were part of the Obama policy plan.

Plain as day. (Well, except for that week or so when it disappeared without comment and then was put back up without comment.)

Many many folks, myself included, pointed this out many many times.

I got a lot of “listen to what he said…he said he wouldn’t do it. He’s not lying.” to which I responded “read what he wrote…he said he would do it. He’s got to be lying in at least one of the cases.”

Anyone who says they didn’t know was either ignorant or willfully uninformed. Anyone who knew and said he wouldn’t do it was either lying or willfully ignoring the guy’s record.

Stupid or lying. Don’t come whining about how it was neither because you misread the guy. Man up and change sides.

13 thoughts on “Stupid or Lying”

Considering that some of this is transcribed from a comment you left to me elsewhere, I assume that this is in response to mine. So let me be clear, I never thought that Obama was anything but anti-gun. What I said there, and during the election, was that as president, Obama a) had better things to work on then an AWB, and b) that he had to be aware that were he to try to push one, he’d scuttle all the gains Democrats have made in the West. Which makes me guilty of assuming that Obama was too smart and too good a politician to try to lose his party control of the Congress like Clinton did.

N: This post isn’t directed *only* at you, as a couple of others have brought this up to me as well.

Well, we could really dig down and throw out various definitions of various words, but I won’t.

Assuming I understand where you’re coming from, I don’t think you were lying. It sounds like you either didn’t know that Obama flat-out said that a new AWB was part of his plan or you thought that even though he said it was part of his plan he wouldn’t do it.

In the former case (not knowing about the AWB plan) it was pretty shoddy for someone to think they know enough to make any statements about Obama and guns to be unaware of it. That’s like the people who tell me what’s wrong with my football team but don’t know any of the players or who they played last week. Making analysis without knowing enough to analyze. Stupid.

The other option is willful ignorance or rationalization. “La! La! La! I can’t hear Obama when he says anything about an AWB!” or “Yeah, Obama says he’s going to do it, it’s perfectly in line with what he’s done in the past, and a lot of his supporters would support it, BUT I don’t think he really means it.” That’s really, really reaching. Stupid.

You’ve got a reason why you thought what you thought. You obviously believed it. Obama seems to have completely invalidated your entire rationalization in less than six weeks in office. He did this by doing exactly what he said he was going to do. Stupid.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean that YOU ARE STUPID. I don’t know enough about you to have an opinion about that. I just mean that trying to rationalize away something so important is a stupid thing to do.

Honestly, I think I maybe have less trouble with the liars who lied to me about Obama and got him elected so that he could enact policies contrary to what I think is right than I do with the ignorant types. Those folks are just using dishonorable tactics to achieve their goals.

The people who seem to have been either woefully/willfully ignorant of Obama’s probable course of action or simply wished away the things about Obama that they didn’t like and happily pulled the lever for him are the ones that I think are a much bigger problem.

“Yeah, Obama says he’s going to do it, it’s perfectly in line with what he’s done in the past, and a lot of his supporters would support it, BUT I don’t think he really means it.”

It appears where we disagree is this statement. Any number of people of my acquaintance voted for Obama with this rationale. “Yeah, Obama says he’d like to do it, and it is in line with what he has done in the past. But every Democrat around me is saying that wouldn’t vote for it, when Clinton did it, the Democrats do it, and it’ll piss off a huge number of people who are voting for Obama who aren’t Democratic base voters.” A certain amount of wishful thinking, but I don’t think this is a “woefully/willfully ignorant” point of view, considering even Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are essentially falling in line with it.

Okay. I do hear what you’re saying and I do think I see where you’re coming from. I don’t agree with it, though.

At one point Obama even said that he wouldn’t do it “because he didn’t have the votes” to do it, and this would seem to be in line with what I understand your rationalization to be. But he just flat out did it anyway. THAT is exactly what I’m saying and where I’m coming from.

Some people said he would do this. Others said he wouldn’t and had a long list of reasons why. Then Obama just went and did it anyway, reasons or no reasons. The first AWB had a lot of trouble at first, too. Pelosi and such are saying they’re opposed today, but the need to keep saying that forever. Really. They need to remain opposed forever and ever and ever and ever. Because if for just one day, for some reason, they change there mind?

ZAP! AWB in place.

And then we’ll have all these people going on and on about how they didn’t think the Dems would really do it and they’ll have a long list of reasons why they thought so. But it won’t help anyone.

Fair enough. They do need to remain opposed forever. So let’s make them do it.

You don’t like Pelosi or Reid, fair enough. But tell them that you applaud their stance here. For me, I live in a state that has elected a number of pro-gun Democrats. So I’m going to tell them that I expect them to continue to adhere to that position. This goes on long enough, and an AWB won’t be a problem.

Before this election, although I wasn’t anti-gun and Second Amendment, I was pretty ambivalent to 2nd Amendment issues and felt that gun ownership was something that was of no interest to me. After studying this election and all the issues concerning the upcoming presidency I came to the conclusion that the 2nd Amendment had meaning to a free society. I began to understand what our Founders Fathers and all the way to Blackstone understood about the right to self-protection.

After discovering this web site, as well as many other fine 2nd Amendment sites (Alpheca, Guns and the Law, Vohlkov (sp), Instapundit, et al) I realized that the infringement of our natural rights by our elected leaders was a very real concern. And if this right could be taken away then others could be also.

Throughout his political career Obama has done nothing but indicate that he believes the right to keep and bare arms is not a natural right and one that can be limited by the powers of the government. Why wouldn’t we believe him despite what he said on the campaign trail. I believe he let slip his true intentions when he stated he wouldn’t reintroduce the AWB not because he believes it is unconstitutional, but because he didn’t have the votes.

So I want to thank President Obama for making me research, for making me understand, and for making me now one of the many Americans who are exercising their right of gun ownership.

Gene: You’re correct. I meant to write he “wouldn’t be able to do it” because he didn’t have the votes to do it. A fine difference, but an important one and it matters. Good catch.

Montjoie: You’re also correct. Unless it’s a Constitutional amendment, it can just be repealed. And even amendments can be undone by another amendment, as we’ve seen in our history.

But once something’s passed it takes political capital and a movement to undo it. That’s different than renewing something with a sunset. When the 1994 law was about to expire, the onus was on the crowd who wanted to renew to muster the support. If a non-sunset version passes, the onus passes to those who would repeal it.

Today those who would take away freedom have to gather votes. If it passes, it will be those who want to restore freedom who have to do the hardest work.

Look at all of the “Mexican drug runners and LA gang bangers have easy access to automatic weapons” talk today. Multiply that by 100 and add in “the NRA wants to arm criminals with machine guns” if someone starts a campaign to repeal a permanent AWB.

Reid and Pelosi are not opposed to this, I can guarantee it. Reid won’t back it publicly because he reps Nevada, and its not popular there. If it came to a vote, he’d vote for it though, hoping most people in his state wouldn’t notice. And he’d probably be correct.

Pelosi I can’t figure out though. There is no way in hell she is against an AWB, so I’m not sure what her game is, but I am sure she has one. San Francisco is her Home Town, and it is the most hostile city for law abiding gun owners in a state that is one of the most hostile as well. She didn’t just find some new respect for our freedom to bear arms. Maybe she’s waiting for another Columbine when it will be more popular to voice support, I dunno.

I didn’t vote for Obama, guns being one of my prime reasons. I never had any trust for him on this topic, and his history in Illinois did not paint a good picture. But I do hold some hope that the political climate is too hostile to bother burning that political capital to push this agenda. There really are bigger concerns right now, but things can change fast politically, and it would be naive to stake your bets on it.

I truly hope that Dems have taken Bill Clinton’s comments to heart, that the Assault Weapon Ban cost them control of congress in ’94, and don’t bother with it again. But should the decide to go for it, there will always be plenty of media outlets willing to run pieces calling Machine Guns Assault Weapons, and showing repeat felons who have committed gun crimes, while calling ammunition bullets. The predictability is kinda depressing, in an Orwellian sort of way.